


It Seems to Prefer Us and Stays

by Birdbitch



Category: DCU
Genre: Clones, M/M, Pre-Reboot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 15:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3614937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a thing that Tim realizes he has forgotten to take care of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a poem called "To You" by Frank O'Hara. I don't know how long this is going to be. It's stemming from a trend that happened pretty frequently back in like 2011/2012 I'd say and I'm not going to pass it off as being entirely original in that aspect. That being said, I started thinking about the whole "Tim trying to clone Kon" thing and it was something I think I might have written once and decided to revisit now. We'll see what happens (if anything does).

Even now that Kon is back, alive and as well as he’ll ever be, Tim finds that sometimes he still has dreams about the failed cloning process. It isn’t something he actually wants to think about--not really, because he was in a bad place (they all were), and because he knows that, for right now, he doesn’t have to worry about going back there--but the thoughts are invasive and sometimes he wakes up with the beeping of the computer telling him that “The Process Was A--” before he realizes that it’s his alarm clock and remembers that he stopped trying to clone Kon more than a year ago.

But the thoughts and dreams persist.

Kon catches him staring off when they’re eating together one day (“Do you want to go to Metropolis for lunch? I’ll carry you.”) and waves his hand in front of his face until he comes back to the present. “Yo, Tim. What gives?”

He doesn’t snap back that Kon wouldn’t understand, and he doesn’t turn inwards, either. He shrugs. “Can’t really talk about it here,” he says, instead, and Kon looks like he gets it, but he’s probably mistaking “Dead Kon Stuff” for “Batman Stuff” and until they’re back in his office in Gotham, Tim isn’t going to correct him on it. Tim spaces out probably five more times, thinking about the building blocks of life trying to pull themselves together into something inside big glass chambers, oversized test tubes and mechanical wombs filled with fake embryonic fluid. The more he thinks about it, the more he feels like Dr. Frankenstein, and he wonders, briefly, if Lex Luthor and his scientists ever felt the same way trying to clone Superman.

“Tim,” Kon says, finally, “you’re kind of freaking me out.”

“Sorry,” he says. He is, for a lot of things. Kon shrugs and finishes his fries.

“I’m just kind of worried about you.” There’s an unsaid “I always am” hanging at the end of the sentence and Tim reaches under the table to touch Kon’s knee. When Kon feels it, he drops his own hand under to squeeze Tim’s. It’s a nice kind of reassurance that they’re both real, that they’re both there, and that, most importantly, they’re both alive.

Tim thinks again about the one embryo that might have made it after most of the other tests failed. The issue had been the same one that the scientists at Cadmus faced--Kryptonian DNA was just too unstable. Kon might only have been half-alien, but it was enough, enough that Tim couldn’t make it work unless he combined it with more human DNA. His was the reasonable option. He can hear the ringing of the computer again--and he squeezes Kon’s hand instead of paying any more attention to his thoughts.

He’ll have to bring it up.

“Tam’s probably watching the clock tick down to her lunch break,” he says, finally, pulling his hand back and bring it back to the top of the table. Kon’s follows.

“Probably right. Should I take you back, then?”

“That’s probably in both our best interests.”

It’s a little harder to get away with flying out of Metropolis (or dropping into Gotham) than it is leaving Smallville, but Kon manages it without being seen every time. He’s been the center of attention enough times to know how to avoid it. “Don’t think I’m going to let you get away without talking to me,” Kon says once they’re in the air, and Tim wrinkles his nose.

“I wasn’t really planning on it.”

“Good.”

Tim has gotten a lot better about keeping secrets from people in general, but especially Kon. It isn’t total openness--not yet, not really--but it’s the closest Tim can get to it for now. That being said, he can’t blame Kon for thinking he wouldn’t say anything, especially if he’s under the impression that it has to do with Batman as opposed to the two of them. Kon touches down on the roof of Wayne Enterprises and Tim thinks about reprimanding him (doesn’t he know that Bruce personally watches the security footage sometimes?) but is too distracted when Kon kisses the corner of his mouth.

He turns his face so he can get a real, proper kiss, but Kon pulls back just far enough. “What’s going on with you?” Kon asks, and Tim smooths the fabric of Kon’s shirt before he gently grabs it again.

“I keep thinking about when I was trying to clone you,” he says, and his voice is so quiet that if Kon didn’t have super-hearing, he wouldn’t have heard it. “I keep thinking that I left something unfinished, or that I missed something, or--”

He stops and looks up at Kon’s face, sees the furrow in his brow and the hint of frown lines. “What do you want to do about it?” Kon asks, and for once, Tim can’t read his voice. He doesn’t know what he should say, what there is he could say, and he doesn’t know if Kon is angry or upset or what. It’s bothering the hell out of him. Kon swallows and looks away from Tim. “I kind of assumed it was going to be. You know. Bat stuff.”

In a really convoluted way, it kind of is, but Tim doesn’t say that. “It’s going to bother me until I go back to check,” he says, finally. He didn’t destroy everything like he should have. As far as he knows, he wasn’t even in his right mind enough to properly cover his tracks, and someone else could have find the tests. They could have gone farther with it than he ever could, could have made their own Superboy, and if that was the case, would Tim ever actually be able to forgive himself? No.

Part of him knows that it isn’t the fear that someone else found his work that’s making him want to go back. He thinks again about the embryo. He thinks about cells knitting themselves together to form something bigger, he thinks about abandoning something that might have been there because he himself decided that he needed to move on, needed to let go, and forgot that in all of his meddling with nature’s business, he might have created other responsibilities for himself. For Kon, too, now that he’s there. He feels sick to his stomach, and he’s not going to be able to get anymore work done even when he goes back to his office, but he’s going to have to put in his best effort. Kon has to go back to the farm because it’s planting season and it’s so much better (cheaper, faster, efficient) if he’s doing the work for Ma Kent instead of fifteen hired hands who get better pay from other, bigger farms.

“When? Say the word and I’ll be there.” Kon’s hands are warm on his arms, radiating through the thin cotton of his shirt’s sleeves, and Kon’s eyes are filled with concern and worry that stem from love.

“Tonight. I’ll talk to Cass and see if she can cover my area for me.” Of course she will--she might give him a little bit of a hard time in her own quiet, teasing way, but she won’t ask why he needs the time and she’s good enough that, to be honest, he could probably quit for good and she’d be fine covering him forever. “I have to get back to work.” His throat feels dry and he’s not sure how steady he’ll be when he walks towards the roof escape to get back into the building.

Kon leans down and kisses him again, quick and reassuring, just like the smile he gives afterwards. Shaken, maybe, but still standing. “Let me know. We’ll do it together.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discovery

It’s not even ten when he and Kon get to the safe house. Tim doesn’t know if he should have really called it a “safe house” to begin with--it was a lab first and foremost, was a lab when he used it, and is still a lab no matter how condemned the underground structure actually is. He takes a deep breath and moves the manhole cover so he can climb down the ladder. “Can you close it, once we’re both inside? I don’t. I don’t want to run the risk of anyone finding out,” he asks, and Kon nods his head.

“You got it,” he says.

Bruce and Dick know, to an extent, about the cloning experiments. They don’t know how far he went with it, nor the exact reason beyond his extreme grief, but they made it pretty clear that it wasn’t something that they approved of, that it wasn’t something he was ever allowed to do again. He’s an adult, he thinks, he can make his own decisions, and it was obviously okay when Dick tried to bring Bruce back through the Lazarus Pit, but he gets why. Clones are made by people like Lex Luthor and they’re made, usually, with bad intentions. It’s a slippery slope.

One of the things they don’t know--that Kon doesn’t even know--is how he had started using his own DNA. Not a clone, at that point, but closer to what Kon was to Clark. He keeps his mouth shut about it as they climb through the sewer, as Kon tries to joke around to lighten the mood and fails. He should tell him, he thinks. He should, before they get to the last door, before he has to key in his password and press his thumbprint against the still-functioning bio-lock. He should, but he doesn’t until they’re inside and the door is locked behind him.

“Kon,” he says, and it sounds caught somewhere wrong between his throat and his teeth. “It wasn’t...really cloning, at the end of it.”

Kon raises an eyebrow at him, eyes drawn back from traveling the ruins of the lab. There’s one container that’s still intact, obscured by debris. “I don’t get you,” he says, and Tim frowns.

The files are still in the desk, something too heavy and solid and bolted to the ground for him to have been able to flip over. To be honest, he should have destroyed those, too, but if there’s one thing Tim hates doing, it’s destroying data, no matter how damning it might be. Sometimes, he thinks he’s being smart about the way he keeps it, with encrypted computer files and codewords and ciphers, but with this stuff? He kept it all in print because that was what he had, typed up the reports himself on a now busted electronic typewriter and hid it in the drawer like it was the safest place to keep it, like there weren’t people in the world who could pick a lock.

“You know how you’re not really a clone of Superman in the same way that most people would use the word ‘clone’?” he asks, and Kon frowns.

“Tim.” Kon steps closer, hovers in front of the desk as Tim riffles through pages and pages of failed attempts and controlled elements. “You didn’t.”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he clears his throat and looks at the computer from his dreams, still running its tests. The process, he remembers, was never completed, and he never thought to stop it. It only gave status reports when he asked. Now, he doesn’t know what to do except clear the dust from the monitor and stare at it. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” he says, and then he stops and shakes his head. “No, actually. I think I did know, but I don’t think I really understood it, not like. I didn’t think.”

The computer’s voice is soft and broken, but it still cuts through the air between them. “Attempt succeeded. Abort or continue?”

Tim moves past Kon, clears some of the debris from in front of the container, the artificial womb, and inside is an infant. “Is it alive?” he asks, mostly to the computer, but then, if its heart is beating, Kon would hear it, too.

“Affirmative.”

“Tim.” Kon’s voice is breaking and he comes to stand beside Tim, a hand on his shoulder. “Tim. What did you do?”

“Computer, what happened? Why is it in stasis?” It’s the worst thing he thinks he’s ever done, and he presses a hand against the glass. The infant inside doesn’t move.

“Awaiting command.”

“Tim.” Kon turns him, physically, to look away from the infant and at him. “That’s. That’s a kid. It’s alive. I can hear his heart beating.” His grip on Tim’s shoulders tighten. “That’s. What did you do?”

“It’s.” Tim swallows hard. “Don’t hate me.”

“I don’t! Don’t make the assumption that I’m going to hate you, just tell me, what did you do?”

Tim wants to say that he thinks Kon probably already knows, because he’s not that dense, that demanding an answer like this is a defense mechanism, a try for denial that this isn’t what he thinks it is. “Awaiting command,” the computer repeats, coming back to life. He swallows again and looks back at the infant, now starting to move like the presence of people has awakened it to what it actually is. It is not strong enough to break out of the test tube itself, maybe would have been if Tim had left it for another five years instead of just one. It is his son, and it is Kon’s son, and he has made a terrible mistake in his grief-driven attempts to salvage some part of his best friend.

“Kon,” he says, finally. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You’re not doing it alone. You. You made a kid, and it’s. It’s mine, too, isn’t it? Who else’s?”

“I wasn’t going to take anyone else’s DNA. I wanted him to be mine.” He can’t look at either the infant or Kon, now. “Computer, release.”

It comes with a hiss and a beep and the fluid starts to drain from the container--the tank, and it might as well be one of the same ones Kon’s own other failed siblings had been tried in. Kon breaks the glass, keeps it from hitting the infant and pulls him from the water. The infant stares at both of them, doesn’t open his mouth at all, and Tim looks at Kon, waiting for a reaction.

He’s scared.

“You need to tell Batman,” Kon says. He cradles the infant, holds him close to his chest, and Tim frowns.

“I can’t.”

“Then I’ll tell Superman.”

“Conner.” He reaches to grab the infant and Kon doesn’t stop him, lets him bring it close to himself and look into its enormous eyes. “You can’t do that.” There are a million explanations he could give as to why telling either Batman or Superman would be a terrible idea. Previous experiences with clones--especially clones of Kon--have been negative at best, devastating at worst.

Kon lets out a groan, and it’s the first thing that seems to upset the infant, bringing a tiny furrow to the center of his brow that’s not so different from the one on Kon’s own face. “Then what are we going to do?”

“I’ll figure it out.” Tim watches the infant’s face, waiting for him to burst into tears, but it never happens. Maybe Kryptonian babies don’t cry that much, he thinks, and if that’s the case then it’s one small blessing.

“No.” He looks up at Kon, ready to argue. “We’ll figure it out. This isn’t just about you, Tim. Don’t try to act like it’s all you.” Kon moves closer, wraps an arm around Tim like he’s supporting the weight of the infant by holding up his elbow. Maybe he is--the infant feels weightless in Tim’s arms and Tim’s only making the assumption that he can’t fly yet. He could be wrong. He doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into. The only reason he hadn’t come back sooner, he tries to reason, was that he thought he had taken care of everything, and if he had come back to the lab, looked at all the tests and tanks and computers, who’s to say he wouldn’t have fallen back into his own habits?

“You’re right,” he says, looking up at Kon. “We’ll figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a side note: it means the world to get comments from readers especially when it seems like the fic might end up being a long one, so I really want to encourage anyone who likes this to drop a line. I like knowing what people think about the things I write.
> 
> Another note is that I'm on tumblr as Sailorbirdie if that's your kind of thing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Jason they go to.

If he hadn’t caught sight of the infant, Jason would have closed the door on the two of them. “I don’t know how you found my safe house--”

“You have like, five, and I made a well calculated guess as to which one you’d be in,” Tim says. He’s exhausted emotionally and mentally in ways he hasn’t been since...well, he’d say since he actually started to play around with cloning in the first place. “I didn’t know who to go to.” Kon shuffles into the safe house nervously behind Tim, not so much because of who it belongs to but because of any potential fight that might spring up between Tim and Jason. They’re not on the best of terms to begin with, and maybe this was a mistake.

At the same time, besides Steph (and Tam, even, if he thinks even harder and longer about it), there aren’t a whole lot of people Tim knows in Gotham who he could bring this to without the worry of it getting back to Bruce, and Jason is one of those few. Kon watches Jason loom over Tim and the infant, and gets surprised when Jason’s face breaks into a grin and he starts cooing at the baby. “Ah, you’re cute, aren’t you?” he asks, and the baby doesn’t make any noise, not really, but he also doesn’t seem to disagree with the man. “So what, whose is it? Am I going to be like a glorified babysitter?”

“It’s ours.”

Jason straightens out and looks between Tim and Kon. He doesn’t have a mask on, and there are lines by his eyes that weren’t there the last time Tim saw him. Kon thinks that maybe he just aged another decade looking at the two of them. “What did you do?” Jason asks, but then he shakes his head. “Let me guess. Don’t tell B?”

“I don’t want him to know.”

“Don’t want him to know about a colossal screw up or about Mini Me? What does he know?”

Tim doesn’t smile. “I don’t really think I can get into the details yet.”

“And you think that should be good enough for me?”

“I’m asking for it to be good enough.”

Jason looks at them again before leaning back towards the baby. “What do you think, Kid? Should I trust them?” He glances up, making eye contact with Tim. “Lemme hold him.”

“Tim--”

He turns to look at Kon. “If we’re going to ask for his trust, we have to trust him,” he says, and Jason smiles and nods.

“He’s right. Give and take sort of thing.” As soon as he has the baby in his hands, he lifts him up and into the air before swinging him back down into his arms. “You guys are lucky I like kids. What do you plan on doing? Does he have a name yet?”

“I didn’t realize he even existed until about an hour ago,” Tim says, his voice soft.

“I didn’t have a name.” Kon stares at the ground. “Jason--thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You guys can’t just dump a kid on someone and leave. It’s not alright. I want to know what you plan on doing.”

It’s reasonable, Tim guesses. Everybody’s going to demand something and if Jason just wants to make sure they know what the hell they’re doing, can he really blame the guy? It isn’t like Jason hasn’t seen what happens to kids who get dropped off on random doorsteps, it isn’t like Jason hasn’t seen what happens when parents think they know what’s best and then just leave their kids to fend for themselves. Despite the strange circumstance surrounding the baby’s birth, Tim realizes, he and Kon really are going to have to be his parents. He feels too young and too old all at once.

“I don’t know what to tell Bruce,” he says, finally, and Jason shrugs, balancing the infant on his hip.

“First of all, he’s going to be pissed no matter what you tell him. Dick’s a lot more forgiving.”

“They’re going to think he’s just like Match.”

Kon shifts behind Tim, and it’s obvious after the words leave his mouth that Kon hadn’t thought of that as being a reason not to tell Superman. Hell, maybe he hadn’t thought about that at all and only thought Tim’s reluctance to tell Bruce was based more on Batman’s own disapproval of Kon than any serious harm. Jason’s face darkens and he looks at the baby. “I don’t think someone this cute could ever be evil,” he says, and then he smiles at the baby and coos again. “Holy shit. I love kids so much.”

“Jason.”

“You asked me to babysit. I’m not coming up with your plan to break the news to the big guy for you.” He sits down on a dirty couch. “What’s in your bag?”

“We stopped to get baby formula and diapers,” Kon says, and his movements are stiff as he brings the bag over to Jason’s side and leaves it on the couch.

“Good plan.” Jason sits the baby on his knee and looks at Kon and Tim again, face serious. “Listen. I won’t tell Bruce or Dick or anyone right now, because it seems like you guys are in a tough spot. But. You’ve got a week to figure something out because after that, I can’t promise I won’t let it slip. It’s your kid. You figure it out.” He smiles at the baby. “I’ll watch him while you’re at work or whatever I guess.”

“I thought--” Tim starts and Jason stops him.

“You thought you could just leave him here with me while you get everything figured out? Yeah, right.” He hands the baby to Kon before he has a chance to get back to Tim’s side. “He’s your kid. Not mine. Work out a schedule between you guys or whatever you have to do, but I’ve got a nightlife that doesn’t stop for diaper changes.” He stands up. “Drop him off on your way to work, pick him up on your way back. But I’m not an overnight hotel.”

“I get it.” Tim frowns.

“You guys should get some rest. Go home and sleep.” Jason is shoving them out of the door as the window across the room starts to enter. Once they’re outside, they can hear murmurs of, “Hey, maybe use the door like a normal person?” and a conversation that’s too quiet for Tim to keep up with and too personal for Kon to bother trying.

“Hey, hold him for a second?” Kon says when they’re outside, and Tim raises an eyebrow but takes the baby anyway. “It’ll be quicker if I just fly you to your apartment, right?” He doesn’t bother waiting for an answer before picking Tim up and lifting off.

“You have to warn people before you do that,” Tim says, but he rests his head against Kon’s chest and closes his eyes. He doesn’t mind the ride, is tired and sad and scared, and having the warmth of Kon’s body and the sound of his heart beating makes him feel a little more relaxed. Kon himself is still tense, has been since they got into the lab and there’s nothing Tim can say to make him loosen up. “I’m sorry,” he says when the land on his deck, and Kon shrugs as he undoes the lock with his TTK.

“You didn’t know,” he says. His face still looks pale in the reflection of the door, disappearing entirely as it slides open and Kon walks the three of them towards Tim’s bed. “I mean. If it had worked out and I wasn’t there, you’d still. I don’t know. Maybe it might have made it easier? That’s why you were trying to clone me in the first place, right?”

“I just wanted you back.”

“Well. A kid isn’t me, but it’s. It’s not too far away, I guess.” Kon places Tim down in the center and folds the sheets down before moving him and tucking him in under them. “Can I really blame you?”

Even if Kon wanted to, he wouldn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t have done the same thing--wouldn’t have thought to, despite whatever Luthor’s genetic influence might mean--but he can imagine that maybe, if he had been desperate enough, having a kid that belonged to both of them would have lifted some of that pain and loss. Tim tugs at the hem of his shirt as he starts to move away and back towards the door. holding him in place while he sets the infant against the pillow as a prop.

The baby has been asleep since they got in the air, and if there’s ever a problem with getting him to go to sleep in the future, it’s good to know what will work to calm him down.

Tim climbs out of bed and walks with Kon towards the open door. “I don’t want you to leave tonight,” he says, fingers still touching that shirt hem, and Kon frowns.

“I didn’t want to leave, either.” He looks towards the bed and then out at the city. “Do you think it’s really such a good idea that I stay?”

“Kon.”

Tim kisses him, presses against him and Kon has to kiss back, has to pull Tim flush against him and tangle a hand in his hair. If the computer had read back a failed report, how would things be different? It isn’t worth thinking about when this is the reality, Kon figures, but it still presents itself. There’s a baby--their baby, really--in the bed that they’re going to be sharing. In the morning, Kon will fly to Smallville to work on the farm while Tim works at his desk job and Jason Todd (of all people in the entire universe) will watch that baby, their son, until the end of the working day.

The fact that it’s their son makes Kon possessive of Tim, of whatever it is they have now, and he kisses hungrier and faster while knowing for a fact that for now, that’s all they’re going to be doing. For a moment, he can pretend that maybe this all came about in a conventional way, that they’re married, that they’re really responsible adults, that they’re not hiding this from anybody or trying to make plans to tell anyone because everybody would have known that the baby was coming in advance of its arrival.

“I won’t leave,” he says, and he closes the door. “Jason was right. We should get some sleep.”

He follows Tim back to the bed and climbs in behind him as the big spoon, while Tim puts a protective arm over the infant. 


	4. Chapter 4

 

When Tim wakes up in the morning, it takes him a second to come out of his groggy post-sleep haze and wonder where Kon and the baby are. On unsteady legs, he leaves the bedroom and sees, in the kitchenette, Kon feeding the baby with one of the bottles they had bought the night before.

“‘Morning,” Kon says. There’s a pot of coffee brewing and bread in the toaster. “He was hungry, so I figured…”

“I didn’t hear him cry,” Tim says softly. He watches as Kon’s shoulders shrug and he puts down the bottle on the counter.

“I heard his stomach rumbling.” Something Tim wouldn’t have been able to hear, probably, but then, if Kon had been sleeping, wouldn’t he have been just as deaf to it?

There aren’t noticeable dark circles under his eyes, but then, there never would be. The only real hint that Kon didn’t sleep the night before would have been the slight huskiness to his voice. “Did you sleep at all?” Tim asks, stepping closer and taking the baby in his own hands. He does it in time for the toast to pop up, freeing Kon’s hands so he can grab it.

“I mean, I tried?” Kon tries grinning at him, but it isn’t strong enough to convince Tim that he got nearly enough sleep at all. He drops it. “I was worried, alright?”

The baby pulls at Tim’s shirt and he looks down to see a serious face that turns into a big laugh as soon as the baby is sure he has Tim’s attention. His eyes are closer to Tim’s in the shade of blue, not unlike how Kon’s are much closer to Lex Luthor’s green than Superman’s, but the way he’s laughing--open with crinkled eyes--reminds Tim more of Kon now than any baby pictures of himself. “Are you going to be alright in Smallville, then?”

“I’m going to have to be,” Kon answers. “Ma needs me there, and then I’ll just tell her when I’m done that I need to come back here. She’s not going to be too surprised.” Kon doesn’t say that Ma Kent thinks the two of them are pretty much engaged anyway, because Tim already knows that and wonders if maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, especially now. “Jason’s...he is good with kids, right?”

“Probably better than a lot of other options.” He thought about Steph, but decided against it. She’s at school still, has classes, and Jason was right--he can’t just push his kid on someone and expect them to take it without any questions, and he’s too tired to actually go over the entire story before running off to work and leaving Steph to miss class. It doesn’t work that way. “I trust him.”

“Alright. If you trust him, I trust him.” When the coffee is done, he makes a mug and hands it to Tim. “I probably should get going.”

“You and me both.” Tim hasn’t even really thought about going to work, wonders if maybe he should take the rare day off and leave running the office up to Tam, but decides against it. He should act as normal as he can, and spending time at the office can double as time spent figuring out exactly what to do and how to make any announcement to Bruce. Or Dick, if he decides to follow Jason’s advice. When he looks up from the baby, Kon is looming over him. “Kon?”

He’s surprised at first by the kiss, but settles into it. When Kon pulls away, he looks down at the baby and presses a kiss against the top of his head, too. “I’ll see you later,” he says, and Tim nods his head. “Have a good day at work.”

“Is there a way that translates to you on the farm?”

“It’s still work,” Kon says, but he gets it. Not really the same. “I should get moving. The cows aren’t going to milk themselves, or like, whatever.”

Tim has to laugh, and it feels hard in the back of his throat but genuine, because whatever else happens, they’re not going to be changed by this, or if they aren’t, it will be for the better. Kon grins at him and winks and is gone before Tim can even say “goodbye.” He looks at the baby. “I should probably buy you more clothes, huh?”

Right now, he’s wearing what Kon thought would look good while Tim waited for him to finish shopping outside of the superstore, and as much as Tim likes plaid, he’s pretty sure they should have more than one outfit for the baby.

The coffee Kon made is the way Tim likes it, and he moves into his living room so he can put the baby down to crawl around while he eats the toast plain. While he eats, he tries to make a plan of action--if not for the week, then at least for the immediate concerns. Buy clothing--he can do it online at work and pick it up in the store on his way to pick the baby up from Jason’s safe house. Pick up more baby formula and diapers. Childproof the house. Borrow a few books on parenting from the library--he might not know what to look for, but if they’re something other parents have used…

Pick out a name for the baby is on his list too, but he’s not sure how far he’s going to get with that. Maybe there’s supposed to be a Kryptonian naming convention he has to follow, or maybe because Superman’s the patriarch of that family only he gets to bestow names on anybody. Maybe Kon will want to name him. Maybe the truth is he has no idea what he’d name a kid in the first place, let alone his own son.

Maybe the first person he should talk to should be Martha Kent, given how she’s the only person on the entire planet who has actually raised a Kryptonian--two, if you count Kon’s adolescence.

“What am I going to do?” he asks the baby, who looks up at him and makes a few noises. It’s the most Tim has heard from him besides the laughing, and he wonders if he himself was a quiet baby or if it’s a Kryptonian thing. He wishes his dad was still alive so he could ask, could get some advice from him, but then, what would he even have said? He frowns and stands up, moves to scoop up the baby with him. “I guess get ready for work, right?”

He gets another gurgling gibberish noise in response, and it’s good enough. 


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey Tam, what would you do if I said I have a son?” She’s visiting Tim’s office to go over inventory reports from one of the warehouses that a group of low-level thugs had recently decided to raid, and when he asks, she snorts on her coffee.

“Not funny,” she says, though the look on her face says that she thinks it definitely is. When he doesn’t reply, she looks up at him and the smiles slowly fades away. “You were joking, right?” She waits a beat. “Not joking. Okay. Who’s the mom?”

Tim shrugs and puts his own coffee mug back down on the desk. “That’s a really hard question to answer when there really isn’t one.” A memory from his Young Justice days comes to mind, with Bart referring to Tim and Kon as acting like his parents.

Tam leans closer before turning her head to make sure the door is closed. “Is this like weird superhero stuff that’s going to be temporary?”

“Not temporary. Kind of weird superhero stuff, but. Not.”

“Weird Tim Drake stuff.”

He smiles a little. “Yeah, I guess you could call it that.”

“So, is the kid just yours, or--” She thinks for a second and then her face turns into one of understanding. “It’s Conner, right?”

“How did you--”

“Tim, please.” She reaches across the desk and squeezes his hand, and it feels nice and warm when she does it. “If you were going to have a kid, would it really have been anybody else’s?” She almost has a point, even if she doesn’t know exactly how the baby was brought into being. Maybe she doesn’t actually care, wouldn’t care even if she did know, because that’s the kind of person Tam can be. She’s the closest to an unconditional friendship Tim has had in a long time outside of the superhero community (though she knows enough that maybe she could be considered a hero by proxy), and he knows that it was the right decision to tell her. “Where’s your son right now?”

“Jason Todd is babysitting him.” She raises an eyebrow at this, but doesn’t say anything. “I wasn’t sure who else to go to. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do, or who I should talk to, or anything.”

“You might not like this, but maybe talk to Bruce?” It’s said with the best intentions, but Tim still flinches because he knows he’s going to have to, and he knows that he’s going to get his ass reamed when he does it. “He’s going to find out sooner or later, and isn’t it better if he finds out from you? And wouldn’t you rather just get it over and done with?”

“I just found out last night,” Tim says, and he slumps down in his chair. “We haven’t even named him.”

“Oh, wow.” Tam takes a long sip from her mug and nods her head. “You need to tell Bruce.”

“I’ll wait to hear what Kon thinks.” He knows that he’s going to say the same thing that Tam’s saying, and he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t just call the farm now to tell him that they need to set up a meeting with Superman, too. “Jason gave me until the end of the week, or else he’s going to say something.”

“You wouldn’t want that.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Tam taps her fingers against the desk, her nails making a soothing rhythmic sound that gives Tim tingles on the back of his neck and all the way down his spine. “Well, have you started doing any shopping?”

“I’m stopping at Macy’s after work to pick up what I ordered online in store.”

“Alright.” She seems lost in thought for a second, and then smiles dreamily. “Does he look just like a baby Conner?”

Tim bites his bottom lip. “He has my eyes.”

“That’s not bad. You have nice eyes.” She drinks again. “I’m going with you, you know. Might as well have an extra hand around.”

“Thanks.”

“And if you need anyone to draft what you’re going to say to Bruce…”

He laughs, and it feels good. “No, I think I need to figure that out on my own.”

“Alright.” She stands up, taking her briefcase and coffee mug with her. “You have the reports, though I won’t be totally surprised if you don’t concentrate on them at all. I’ll be back at five.” He watches her leave the room and smiles until he remembers that he really does have to plan out exactly what to say to Bruce, and how to avoid having anything blow up in his face.

He’ll tell Bruce and Dick together, probably. Sit down with them and Kon and the baby, explain that he hadn’t be careful enough, that he didn’t do everything he was supposed to do, that this is his responsibility and that he’ll take care of the baby. Listen as Bruce calls him irresponsible, tells him exactly why what he did was wrong….

That’s the part he’s most worried about. He knows he screwed up, but he doesn’t want Bruce to look poorly on him.

He wonders if telling Clark Kent would be any easier, if they would have to tell Lex, too, or Lois, or anyone. He should go to Ma Kent as soon as possible and he knows it, but then what? He drops his head down on the desk and wishes that Kon would send him a text message complaining about the smell of manure or making a joke about his work or asking him if he wants to get lunch again, wishes that this wasn’t actually happening, but then he thinks about the baby with his big eyes and bigger laugh and smiles and wants to cry.

Maybe he should have taken the day off, after all.

It’s thinking like this that gets him to pick up his phone and dial in Jason’s number, and when Jason picks up on the third ring, he doesn’t actually know what to say. “Hey, hello?”

“Jason.”

“What’s up?”

Tim thinks for a little bit, and sighs. “I guess I just wanted to know how he’s doing.”

“Oh, he’s great. He crawls really fast, but I think you can get him on his feet in no time. Real smart for a baby. Tried getting my cabinets open and almost did.”

He groans. “What kinds of cabinets.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Has he been. Is he.” Tim doesn’t know how to phrase what he wants to ask--is he weird? Has he been acting like a normal baby? Were the cabinets normal or steel grade that the baby almost pulled off the hinges? He should have taken the day off.

Jason’s voice is dry. “Oh, he’s definitely his dad’s kid, alright.”

“Which one?”

“Figure it out.” Jason pulls away from the phone for a second to say something to, Tim assumes, the baby. “Sorry, he was just pushing against the couch.”

“Great.”

“You’ll be fine with him. You seem to have a thing for supers, anyway.”

“If he breaks anything, I’ll give you the money to replace it.”

“Maybe I should just break my own shit and say it was him.”

“You wouldn’t.”

A pause. “No, you’re right. I wouldn’t.”

Tim smiles again. “I just wanted to call to check in. He’s doing alright?”

“Fit as a fiddle.”

“Good. Thanks again.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re picking him up at what time?”

“Probably closer to six. I have to stop at the store to get things first.” He swallows. “Alright. I should probably get back to work. Thank you, Jason.”

“Business, business, business. Think about how to break the news to the rest of the family while you’re at it. See you later, Tim.”

“See you.” Tim hangs up and sits back up in his chair. He’ll figure it out, no matter how difficult it might be. For now, he has to concentrate on finding out what was stolen from his warehouse.


	6. Chapter 6

After shopping, Tam and Tim make the decision for Tam to go on ahead to his apartment with the goods (“Tiffany just had a baby a year ago. I know what to do.”) and Tim to pick up the baby by himself. He hasn’t heard from Kon yet--and if that doesn’t making him anxious, he doesn’t know what will--but he’s choosing to think that maybe the planting is just taking longer than usual, the bales of hay a little more resistant to being rolled...anything. Sometimes he’ll forget to call people for a week or more (sorry, Cassie) so he’s trying to understand and not jump to conclusions. Instead, he concentrates on knocking on Jason’s door, and Jason answers with a baby spoon in his mouth and the baby himself balanced on his hip.

It’s not a bad look for him. Maybe if circumstances were different (maybe in the future they will be different) Jason would have made a good father. He still probably could. “Hey.”

“Hi,” he says, inviting himself in. The baby grabs for him, reaches out and Tim realizes that the closer he gets, the less the baby is reaching with his hands and more with a faint hint of the same tactile telekinesis Kon still uses to get his attention from across the room. Better recognize it sooner than later, he figures. “Can I--”

“He’s your kid,” Jason says, and in a moment Tim’s arms are full of a laughing baby. “He started crying as soon as you dropped him off and I thought the entire fucking apartment complex was going to crumble.”

“Don’t swear around my baby,” Tim says, but it’s an idle comment because something in him feels so much more relieved, so much better and happier with the baby in his arms and staring up at him with his big watery eyes. It registers then what Jason’s saying, and he looks away from the baby and at the other man. “What do you mean he started crying? He hasn’t cried at all.”

“Maybe he didn’t like thinking he was never going to see his mom again.”

Tim chooses to avoid the comment and asks, “How’d you get him to quiet down?”

Jason leaves for a second and comes back with a stuffed bear that Tim doesn’t recognize having bought. “He really liked the toy,” Jason says, and when he shows it to the baby again, the baby reaches out with one hand to grab it while holding onto Tim’s shirt front with the other.

“Is it yours?”

“No,” Jason says. “It was in your baby bag.”

Kon, then. It makes Tim smile, and he adjusts his hold on the baby. “Go figure. I should probably get going, then. Thanks for watching him, Jason. I appreciate it.”

“Come up with a name for him so I don’t have to keep calling him ‘Kid,’ and we’ll call it even.”

Tim frowns again. “I’m working on it.”

“Work harder. When do you want me to--”

“Babysit again? I think I’m going to take the rest of the week off. I didn’t realize how much it would drain me to be away from him. Is next week alright?”

“I might have moved house.”

“I’ll find you.”

He always does, unfortunately. He’s got a skill for sniffing out people who might not otherwise want to be found. Jason hands him the baby bag he had brought over that morning, complains a little about the diapers and the smell and the way the baby had a tendency to try getting into places he shouldn’t, but ultimately it’s all good natured. Despite himself, Jason seems like he does actually like the kid, and Tim’s happy about that--there’s going to be someone he can go to during the day.

The journey back to his own apartment feels long--he’s relying on a company car with a babyseat in the back which is better than the morning commute, but it’s still not as convenient as being flown around anywhere with Kon. He makes the decision while looking in the rearview mirror that if he doesn’t hear from him first by seven (he’s an hour ahead of Kon as it stands), he’ll call. He won’t be happy, but he’ll do it.

He isn’t expecting Kon to be the one to open the door for him, but he’s glad it is. “Sorry about not calling,” Kon says, and he keeps his voice soft. The baby is awake in his carrier, watching Kon and blowing small spit bubbles from his mouth. “I kind of. Didn’t have the chance.”

When Tim gets in through the door, he sees Ma Kent folding (probably just cleaned, God Bless her) baby clothes while Tam sets up a playpen across the room. “Mrs. Kent?”

She stops what she’s doing and stands up, arms open for a hug from Tim, who moves into them automatically--because what else can you do at that point? Kon already took the baby carrier, is taking the baby out and standing him up on the table with his hands under his armpits supporting him, and Tim has nothing to do but accept the maternal embrace that he wouldn’t have otherwise gotten if Kon hadn’t told her. She feels nice and solid and warm like a grandmother should, and he knows immediately that he made a mistake, he should have gone to her before even Jason, because even if she does tell Superman, at least she’s been through this before.

“If I had gotten a little warning, I would have made a pair of booties,” she says, and it’s as much a joke as it is a gentle admonishment. “Tim. How are you?”

He knows that Tam and Kon are looking at him, waiting for his answer, but he leans in close and tries to whisper so quietly that Kon will only be able to hear it if he’s concentrating on doing so. “Scared,” he says. She nods her head and pats his back and urges him to sit down next to him.

“Well, the first thing you need to know is that you should avoid using any detergent with perfumes in it when you wash his clothes. They can irritate any baby’s skin, but Clark had a lot of nasty marks from it.” She hands him a stack of clothes as an invitation to get folding with her, and all he can think about is the idea of a baby Clark Kent, covered in a rash from human laundry detergent that he wasn’t used to.

“Right. Alright.”

“If you have a drying rack you can put in your laundry room, use that instead of the dryer. I’d say let them air dry outside, but.” She casts a look out of the window and Tim gets what her opinion of Gotham’s air quality is immediately. “Conner.”

Kon looks up and the baby follows his line of sight over to Ma Kent. They’re playing, Kon helping the baby dance around on the tabletop while he giggles with shrill laughs. “Yeah, Ma?”

“Let me see him!”

It’s a struggle, it looks like, for Kon to give the baby up, but he looks right when Ma takes him into her arms and rocks him back and forth. Tam comes over, done making the playpen, and she and Ma coo over the baby. “If you two wanted to talk, we can watch him,” Tam says, and Ma nods.

Of course, they need to talk. Kon and Tim share a look before they head towards the bedroom, which looks more like a nursery now than anything else, including a brand-new bookcase with parenting books a picture books to be read aloud. “The rocking chair used to be Ma’s. She had me pull it down from the attic,” Kon says, and Tim closes the door behind him.

“I appreciate it,” Tim says, his voice soft. He heaves a sigh and sits down on the bed. “We need to tell Bruce.”

“I know,” Kon replies, and he sits down next to Tim and rubs his back. “Dude, when was the last time you had a real massage? You’re all knots.”

“It’s been a while,” Tim answers. He waits for a moment, leaning into Kon’s hand and the expanding field of TTK against his back. He could fall asleep like this, and he’s worried that he actually might. Before he can, though, he has to talk, has to make words come out of his mouth… “Thanks for telling her,” he says, and he hears Kon snort a little.

“She knew the second I got there that something was wrong. I can lie to Clark, but.”

“Not to Ma.”

“Not to Ma.” Kon’s hand slows for a moment. “Tam?”

“I didn’t want just Jason’s advice.”

“Not a bad idea.” His hand starts moving again, and Tim drifts over to lean against him. “How was he?”

“Started screaming as soon as I left, apparently. Thanks for leaving the bear for him.”

He can see Kon grinning even though he’s not looking at him. “I figured he might want something to hold onto.”

“You figured right.” He sighs and yawns and opens his eyes and turns to look back up at Kon. “He has TTK. I felt it, when I picked him up.”

“Yeah?” Kon sounds and looks excited about it. “How much of a range?”

“Not far. I don’t think Jason realized it or he probably would have said something.” He reaches for Kon’s hand and squeezes it. “I think I’m going to take the rest of the week off. It really bothered me not being around, and I thought I’d be able to do it, but.” He couldn’t, not really.

“I’m going to have to go to the farm everyday,” Kon says. “I wish--”

“I know.”

They sit together in a friendly, warm silence, close enough that Tim almost wishes that Tam and Ma Kent weren’t in the next room over and that they wouldn’t have to worry about a baby potentially shouting interrupting whatever could be happening now. Almost, but not quite. “Do you want to talk to him tomorrow?”

“We still have to come up with a name,” Tim says softly. “I didn’t know if it was something you wanted to do--”

“I was thinking about it on the flight over with Ma,” Kon says. “I was thinking that maybe we don’t want to name him after anyone we know, because I don’t really want to make anyone upset because we didn’t name him after them. I mean. We could name him after your dad, if you wanted--”

“I don’t think so,” Tim says. “I like. What you’re saying, about not naming him after anyone we know. What were you thinking?”

“I kind of like ‘Caleb.’” When Tim wrinkles his nose, he frowns. “No, like. Hear me out. It would fit in with like, Clark and Conner, right, and it’s. It’s not like we know anyone named Caleb so nobody can say we’re naming him after them and not whoever, and. I don’t know.”

Tim thinks for a second. “We could ask him what he thinks.”

“Alright.” Kon nods his head, because asking a baby whether or not he likes the name his parents are giving him makes sense somehow. It’s not the weirdest thing they’ve done. “Should we go back out there?”

“Yeah,” Tim says, and he kisses Kon instead of standing up. “We probably should.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a quick note: I am participating in April's Camp Nanowrimo doing something that's mostly original work, so I can't promise exactly when the next update will be. That being said, in the interregnum between this chapter and the next, I would recommend following my tumblr at Sailorbirdie for occasional TimKon and a lot of griping.


	7. Chapter 7

It takes three rings before Bruce picks up the phone, and by that point Tim isn’t entirely sure he knows what he’s doing anymore. Not, of course, that he really had much of an idea to begin with--for someone who loves planning, he really hasn’t thought enough of this through--but whatever small amount of resolve he had feels like it’s going to slip away when Bruce says, “Tim.”

“Hey. Do you think we could have a family dinner tonight?”

It isn’t an unusual request, even if it takes a lot of effort to coordinate on the fly and make sure everybody is going to be around and that, if they do manage to get everyone together, they need to make plans for someone else to look out for the city. Crime never sleeps, Tim guesses. He can hear Bruce thinking about it, can hear him typing (maybe an email?), can hear too much and instead looks at the baby--Caleb, he reminds himself--swinging fabric blocks up and down.

“I don’t see why not,” Bruce says, finally. There’s a rustling noise now from his end, and a sigh. “Dick says he can make it.”

“Good. It doesn’t--it doesn’t have to be everyone. I’m bringing Conner.”

“Noted.”

It would be hard to miss the reluctant note in Bruce’s voice; he’s still not a fan of Kon, probably will never be, but it shouldn’t matter as much as it does. “What time should we show up?” he asks, and he can hear more typing.

“Five.”

He can do five. The baby looks over at him and laughs, and he smiles back. “Alright. I’ll see you then.” He hangs up first, not sure if there’s anything else left to say, and stands up to make his way over to Caleb. When he lifts him out of the playpen, Tim can feel him start to trill before the noise even makes its way out of his mouth.

There are things he could be doing--making a list of things to say, explanations, excuses maybe, running rehearsals of how this dinner should go in his head. To be honest, he should have thought of what to say back when he started attempting to clone Kon in the first place, but he never thought he’d actually be successful. Caleb grabs the front of his shirt and leans forward, tucking his head under Tim’s chin like an instinctive reflex, like all babies know how to cling to their parents when they’re ready to take a nap.

He’ll have to explain the baby’s presence the second they pull up to the manor. Even if Bruce didn’t ask immediately (he might not, after all, preferring to wait until later), Dick would. Tim almost feels bad that he didn’t go to them right away.

The next phone call he makes is to the Kent farm--not Kon, because he can’t expect him to pick up if he’s working out in the field, but to Ma Kent because at least she’ll be able to pick up. When she does, she seems to know it’s him despite Kon’s complaints that she doesn’t have caller ID, much less a non-rotary phone. At this point, Tim is pretty sure she’s psychic.

“Conner should be done in about an hour,” she says, kindly, and Tim finds himself smiling and relaxing back into his own skin like he’s not terrified of the impending dinner with Bruce and Dick.

“Can you let him know that we should get to the manor for five?” he asks.

“Absolutely, dear. Should he change into anything nice?”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Something tells him Martha is going to have Kon change into his better clothes anyway, like he hasn’t tried impressing Bruce every other time they’ve had dinner at the manor. Regardless, maybe it would be better to dress nice. He doesn’t see the dinner as being anything more than a casual affair--unless they’re in public, it really never is--but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t put on the appearance of caring.

“I’ll make sure he gets back to you before five.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Kent.”

“Oh, Tim, please. It’s Ma.”

All of a sudden, it doesn’t seem to matter that much to him if Bruce freaks out. It doesn’t matter what happens because there is someone like Martha Kent in the world and she’s mother enough for everyone, and besides, worse case scenario?

She’d probably go up to bat for the both of them. The three of them, he corrects in his head, because it’s not just about him and Kon.

When he gets off the phone, he lies back on the couch, Caleb asleep on his chest. He doesn’t even realize that he’s drifting off until it’s already happened, and Kon is shaking his shoulder to get him to wake up. “Hm?”

“You know that noise cats make when you nudge them while they’re half asleep?” Kon asks, voice soft, and Tim has an idea of where he’s going with this so he keeps his mouth shut and waits. “That kind of reminded me of it.”

“Good thing or a bad thing?”

“You know, I’ve always thought about how you might look in a catsuit,” Kon says, and he grins before picking Caleb up and off his chest. “It’s four-thirty, by the way. Did you want to change before heading over to the manor?”

Tim’s assumption about Ma’s fashion advice seems to have held true; Kon has the flannel top he’d normally wear open buttoned down and tucked into his jeans, sleeves rolled up. With the glasses, he looks a little more like Clark than not, and maybe that’s a good thing--who else would be better to trust with a baby than Superman? Tim looks down at himself and his wrinkled shirt and frowns. “Yeah. Let me throw on a different top and then we can head over.”

As he’s making his way towards his bedroom, he hears Kon ask, “Are we taking the car?”

He doesn’t really want to. It’s easier to fly over, to skip past any Gotham traffic. There’s less chance of them being late, too, if Kon just flies them. He knows what Bruce would say about it, knows that he should say yes, that they’re taking the car. “Do you want to go down and start it?” he asks, and Kon’s by his side with Caleb in a second.

“Keys?”

“Kitchen counter. You could look with your eyes sometime, you know?”

“Easier to ask you.” Kon smiles and kisses Tim’s cheek and then he’s gone again, probably already down in the parking garage and tucking the baby into the car seat that Tam so helpfully reminded him he needed to get.

He ends up in a yellow button down and Kon already has the car street side when he leaves the building. “I’m driving,” he says, and Kon shakes his head.

“I’m already in the driver’s seat. If you don’t get in, we’re going to be late.” He hates that Kon has a point, that they have fifteen minutes to get to the Manor, but he gets into the passenger side anyway and leans over to look back at Caleb.

He has the stuffed animal in one hand and he has the other hand shoved firmly in his mouth. When Tim reaches to try to pull the hand out, Caleb squawks and then laughs before putting it back in.

“You can’t put your hands in your mouth,” Tim says. “C’mon.”

“He’ll be fine.” They’re speeding almost definitely but Tim doesn’t want to look at the speedometer to check. They even make it past Gotham proper and onto the Wayne estate in record time, and Tim gives up on trying to keep Caleb’s hand out of his mouth in favor of returning to planning what he might be able to say to Bruce and Dick.

When his cell phone rings and he sees Dick’s name on the screen, he almost has a heart attack that they’re late after all, or that Bruce already found out, and he’s surprised his voice doesn’t waiver when he answers. “Hello?”

“Hey, so Bruce forgot to mention that today’s Alfred’s day off, so is it alright if we order Chinese food?”

“Is it--yeah, no, that’s fine. Great.” Kon has heard the change in plan and grins at him, throwing a thumbs up as he pulls up to the manor. “We’re here now, did you want to just wait to order until we get in?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. It’ll give Bruce time to actually make a decision. Damian’s going to be eating with us. Hope that’s alright?”

“It’s fine.” He means, it’s not, not really, because he only really wanted to tell the two of them about the baby (and he can hear Bruce’s voice in the back of his head saying, “Clone,”) and Damian’s presence means that he’ll have to explain it to him, too, but it isn’t like he has any choice in the matter. While Kon turns off the car, he reaches out and touches the back of Tim’s neck with the TTK. Dick already hung up and Tim tucks the phone away into his pocket before telling Kon, “You can’t do that here, remember?”

“One touch in the car isn’t going to kill us,” Kon answers, and he hands Tim the car keys. “Do you want to take him out of the car seat, or should I?”

“I’ll do it.”

And he does, and he’s not surprised when Caleb clings to him in this unfamiliar environment, and he doesn’t mind that he has the weight of the baby in his arms while Kon carries a diaper bag up the front steps of the manor right behind him. Dick answers the door, mouth open like he’s ready to say, “Hello!” but the word died somewhere on the way out. He closes his mouth and looks at the baby and then at Kon and Tim.

“Hey Dick,” Kon says, because Tim seems unable to do so, and Dick looks at him again.

“Hi, Conner.” He reaches for Caleb and Tim lets him and because Tim lets him, Caleb doesn’t seem to mind either. “Who’s this?” He smiles again and it gets Caleb smiling and giggling, and Tim swallows.

“This is Caleb,” Tim says, finding his voice again.

“Caleb.”

“Yeah.”

“How old is he?” Dick moves aside, letting the three of them into the building before closing the door. His eyes are on the baby the entire time. “He can’t be older than two.”

“Probably eighteen months,” Tim answers.

Dick looks at him. “Tim.” He might not know all of the specifics, but he probably has figured out enough--he might not be Bruce, but he sure as hell learned from him. “Tim,” he repeats, expecting Tim to tell him himself without having to ask the question.

“Where’s Bruce?”

“Just finishing ordering the Chinese food.” He’s coming out of the parlour, quiet as ever and it doesn’t surprise Tim that they couldn’t hear him. Maybe Kon did, but wasn’t about to say anything. “I ordered something of everything.”

“Thanks.”

Bruce’s reaction isn’t entirely dissimilar from Dick’s, but he isn’t nearly as stilted, as if he expected that this would happen, as if he planned for it in the same way he has planned for everything else. Tim hates that about him--even if it hadn’t happened, Bruce would have been prepared for it either way. “Come inside. Kind of chilly standing out here, isn’t it?”

“Bruce, it’s spring,” Dick says, as if reminding him that he shouldn’t put on any airs right now. Don’t use another face. This is important. The comment sounded too much like Brucie and they can’t do that right now.

Maybe, Tim thinks, Bruce is more unsettled than he thought he would be. 


	8. Chapter 8

When they are all inside Bruce’s study, Dick and Bruce sit across from Tim, Kon, and the baby and it feels, Tim thinks, uncomfortably like an interview.

“Explain,” Bruce says. Tim and Kon look at each other and Tim can feel that same touch on the back of his neck as he did in the car but if he doesn’t react, Bruce isn’t going to know and he’s not going to be able to say anything.

“I thought I had terminated all attempts to clone Conner. I was wrong.”

“But it’s--you didn’t just use Conner’s DNA, did you?” It comes out more as a statement than a question when Dick asks, because they all know for a fact how Kryptonian DNA reacts to cloning attempts. They have all read the Cadmus reports--Tim’s just the only one who did anything with them. “Tim.”

“You tried to use the Lazarus Pit,” he says, and Dick’s face goes stony before turning red.

“That’s different.”

“I don’t see how magic is any different from science when it comes--”

“Tim.” Kon reaches over and grabs his hand. “Maybe don’t do that.” He has a point--it isn’t worth fighting, not when that’s the opposite of what he wants to do. Taking shots at Dick’s complete despair over Bruce’s death does nothing to help the situation. They reacted in the same way, but arguing about the method doesn’t make it any better and it doesn’t change the fact that they were both meddling in things they shouldn’t have been.

Bruce clears his throat. “Why now?” he asks, and Tim looks at Caleb and bounces him on his lap a little.

“I had the nagging thought that I had forgotten something.” Tim swallows. “I never thought I’d actually be successful.”

“I don’t see why you’d have those doubts about your own abilities,” Bruce answers, and for what it’s worth, it’s a compliment. “You shouldn’t have been making the attempt in the first place.”

“No offense or anything, Mr. Wayne, but does it really matter what he should or shouldn’t have been doing in the first place anymore?” Kon’s voice doesn’t waiver. “Maybe he shouldn’t have been trying to clone me. I get it. I can’t blame him for wanting to any more than you probably would blame Dick for trying to bring you back. But what’s done is done and.” He shrugs. “Anyway, this is where we are.”

Dick’s voice cracks when he says, “Conner’s right,” but he still says it and he looks at Bruce.

“Thanks, Dick,” Kon says.

“I’m not saying I like it.” Dick fiddles with his thumbs. “But. It’s. You said his name is Caleb, right?”

“Yeah,” Tim says.

“Have you told Clark?”

“No.” The next part feels more like playing to Bruce’s own egotism than anything else, but Tim does it anyway. “We wanted to go to you first.”

“Where do you plan on raising him?” Bruce asks.

“I have my apartment--” Tim stops. He hadn’t really thought about that, but the more he sits thinking, the more he realizes that it isn’t going to work. Kon was mostly grown up by the time he got out of his incubation tube, so he maybe didn’t cause as much damage as he could have, but. Could Clark have landed in a better place than Smallville? “Oh.”

Bruce stands up and walks over to the side of the room where his desk is. “Gotham might not be well-suited to raising a…” Tim can see word choices flying across his face before he settles on, “Kryptonian.” He pauses for a moment before letting his shoulders relax. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Right.”

Things haven’t gone nearly as catastrophically as Tim thought they would.

He notices Dick watching him and Caleb and raises an eyebrow at him. When Dick notices, he shakes himself out of a reverie and lets out a small laugh. “Sorry. Spaced out for a second.” He swallows like he’s afraid to ask a question, and then casts a look over towards Bruce, who looks like he’s staring out of the window, looking for the Chinese food delivery car. “Tim, could I--is it alright if I hold him?”

Not fear but embarrassment, then. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference when he isn’t looking for it. “Yeah,” he says, and then he nods his head. “Yeah, absolutely.” When he hands Caleb over to Dick, a fond smile crosses his face and he seems to know immediately the right way to hold him, to get him to giggle, like maybe he should be the one doing this kind of thing.

Tim can feel a tendril of Kon’s TTK ghost over his shoulders and it’s almost as good as actually getting held.

“Bruce,” Dick says, voice soft, and when Bruce looks over, his face softens. “We should probably tell Damian before he feels the need to ask.” He looks back to Tim and Kon, apologetic. “He was originally going to be having dinner with his friend Colin. Sorry to put you in a weird position.”

“I don’t think anything about this isn’t weird,” Kon answers, but he smiles easily. There’s still a lingering tension in the air and Tim can feel it like it’s a tangible thing, but it doesn’t feel as overwhelming as it had when they got into the study to begin with. “He’s walking up the stairs, by the way.”

“Then you should probably think of something to say,” Bruce says. He sits back down next to Dick and, with one arm across the back of the couch, he lounges and leans in so he can look at the baby in the eye. Kon tenses next to Tim, but when Bruce starts tickling the Caleb and gets a gleeful response of giggles, he relaxes.

“Bruce,” Tim says, “I never knew you were so good with babies.”

“He’s a big softy.” Dick winks at them and then turns his attention back to Caleb so he can keep him from falling backwards off his lap. “Besides. Who could say no to a face like this?”

Damian opens the door to the study without knocking--maybe thinking, why should he?--and is about to say something about the food having gotten there, father, you’re taking too long, when he spots the baby. Tim and Kon look at him, and he looks back. Bruce and Dick are preoccupied with Caleb.

“Whose is it?”

“Mine,” Tim says.

There’s almost a miniscule amount of relief that drops Damian’s shoulders, like he was worried, for a second, that he might have to compete for affection or attention or something. He asks, “How?”

Bruce doesn’t bother looking up. “Don’t worry about it, Damian. We’ll be down for the food in a moment.” He hands Caleb back to Tim. “We’ll meet you down there.”

Dick doesn’t open his mouth, but he keeps a pointed eye on Bruce while Tim and Kon stand up to follow Damian out of the study. “How do I know what’s for you?”

Damian frowns. “I think he ordered the entire menu.”

“I didn’t know what you wanted and I didn’t want to waste any time,” Bruce answers. They leave before either of them can say anything else.


	9. Chapter 9

“Are you going to spend the night?” They’re back at Tim’s apartment now, and Caleb has already been put to bed in the crib in Tim’s bedroom. Kon hasn’t actually stayed the entire night since the first one--he’ll wait until Tim falls asleep and then he’ll quietly leave, inadvertently waking Tim by his absence.

“I want to,” Kon says, and he frowns, staring at the dull glow of the television set. If all of this wasn’t happening, what would they be doing right now? Maybe out on the streets, fighting crime--Tim hasn’t put on his costume since they found the baby--or maybe they’d still be right here with a charge between them just waiting to be set off. “Tim,” he tries, and the name dies in the back of his throat because even now, even like this, Tim’s eyes are catching the light from the TV just right and there’s something about the curve of his lips that makes him...Kon can’t think of the word, can barely think straight to begin with.

“Then stay,” Tim says, and it’s not an invitation, not really, but Kon takes it as one anyway to lean in and kiss him, and when Tim doesn’t push him away, he feels the lump that’s been sitting in his chest start to fade away. “Kon,” Tim whispers, voice breathy, “we have to be quiet.”

“Yeah, I know.” He ends up with Tim in his lap, quieting any noises he might be making as he rocks against him by biting his lip, kissing Kon, anything, anything to keep his mouth otherwise preoccupied.

This is it, Kon thinks, this is what they should be doing. Tim feels right where he is, his mouth hot and insistent, and Kon feels like he could die like this. There hasn’t been the time, the right moment, the energy to just do this, and when Tim lets out a murmured, “Kon, I need--” he has to agree--he needs it, too.

He keeps an ear out for the baby, worried even in the midst of sex that something might happen, and when he stops at the sound of a shift and paused breath, Tim’s eyes go wide and he’s about to ask, “What? What’s wrong?” until he hears Caleb breathing again, normally, and he resumes. They both finish relatively quickly, and while Kon could go again (he could always, always, always go again with Tim), he sees how tired Tim looks and figures the time would be better spent carrying him to the bedroom and climbing into bed with him. When he’s sure that Tim’s asleep, he gets up and looks on the baby, reaches for him with his TTK and is thrilled when Caleb’s reaches back. Even when he’s asleep, it knows the feel of it like safety, like when he was pulled from the test tube.

“Kon.”

He turns around and Tim’s sitting up in bed, mouth set into a frown and eyes tired. “Yeah?”

“Don’t go.” He’s not going to say please, because he shouldn’t have to beg, and Kon leaves the side of the crib to get back to Tim, to touch him with the TTK and bundle him up in a protective shell.

“I wasn’t going to,” he says, but he was thinking about it and maybe that’s just as bad. He climbs back into bed with Tim and kisses the top of his head. “I said I was going to stay, didn’t I?”

“I guess so,” Tim says. It isn’t hard for him to fall back to sleep--easier now than it has been in the past, at least--and Kon figures as he starts to fall asleep that he must have made the right decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really short chapter. 
> 
> Comments on fics can make authors feel a lot better about what they're writing and I can promise that unless they're really nasty or hyper-critical, most comments are going to make a person feel better. If you like this, please let me know! I feel really excited when I see that there's something in my inbox!


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